A new trilateral agreement has been put in place between Onex Shipyards & Technologies, which is functioning in order to revitalize Greek shipbuilding, and Hanwha Power Systems from South Korea, with certain American officials, was also a part of the time of the signing event.
The reports confirm that the efforts are a step to revitalize Greek shipbuilding, and they also leverage the rising opportunities in the U.S. under the U.S. Maritime Action Plan by the Trump administration.
Onex goes on to report that the agreement is indeed inclined toward the development of new buildings having LNG capacity and also critical energy infrastructure, such as the FSRU units.
The two companies say that they are going to cooperate when it comes to shipyard production optimization along with efficiency and also to make the reliable supply chains across the United States stronger.
Hanwha is most likely going to become an equipment supplier to Onex, which goes on to operate two shipyards across Greece. Onex also looks forward to benefiting from the deep expertise of Hanwha when it comes to the construction of the LNG and FSRU ships.
In addition to this, the companies are reportedly looking to come up with a U.S.-based shipyard, which would realize opportunities when it comes to the Trump plan and also stress expanding the U.S. Navy in addition to revitalizing the U.S. merchant marine.
Kimberly Guilfoyle, the U.S. Ambassador to Greece, underscored that the Trump plan looks to leverage the shipbuilding capabilities of the American allies so as to support the U.S. industry. The maritime plan goes on to include a call for the development of shipbuilding enterprise zones along with foreign shipbuilders’ involvement.
It is well to be noted that the U.S. has been backing Onex since the time the company took over 2 Greek shipyards, which happened to be largely bankrupt and also out of work. Onex goes on to highlight that due to no production work and also workers that were unpaid in 2020, Elefsis Shipyards has gone on to transform into a busy center having international prospects. Onex was offered a U.S.-backed financing program in 2023, which intended to give $125 million for the upgrade of Elefsis, and in 2025, Onex went on to announce that it is going to be starting the second phase in terms of investments so as to expand the shipyard located at Syros.
Speaking at the event in Washington, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece went on to call the agreement a major milestone in the U.S.-Greek-Korean relations. He further noted that Greek shipowners were the first to offer support to the emerging Korean shipbuilders post-World War II and remarked that the new agreement goes on to unchain the potential when it comes to large-scale energy projects.
